The world from my window

Laid-back, Latin music is playing in the little bar by the harbourside on the island of Kastos, Greece. The wooden chairs - directors' chairs - are full of Dutch people speaking a strange, guttural, glottal, purring language only the Dutch understand. There is a blast from a ship's horn down on the quayside and all eyes turn to a twin-masted wooden vessel, a tripper boat called Christina . The Dutch people pay for their beers and coffees, taking their hats, sunglasses and smiles back along the harbour. And now the sound of a Latin trumpet wafts through the bar's shutters onto an empty terrace. A dog barks and the cicadas are like constant maracas accompanying this jazz tune which whirls around in my head and through the clean, warm air. The island hugs its bigger, more rugged brother Kalamos in the wine dark waters of the Ionian Sea, close to the Greek mainland. A kitten snakes its way along the terrace, after jumping from the arms of an America woman who ...

I don't think I've ever gone so long without blogging. It makes me feel quite dizzy, it does. I've been two weeks at sea, not in an open boat, but as Number One on the the good yacht Nestor . I've woken up next to this in Astakos. I've looked out on this in Meganisi. And we've seen sun, wind, rain and the moon over Mitikas. And the stars, oh, you should have seen the stars over Ithaca. At four in the morning, they were all out to play. We went where the wind took us. We've been in and out of bays, skirting archaeological ruins and tying up to the quayside. It's been magical. I've read seven novels and spent my fifteenth wedding anniversary anchored off the most beautiful, unspoilt island of Kastos. We've had only intermittent internet and a laptop with a flat battery. Just before we went, the Vodafone shops ran out of pay-as-you go cards for the dongle and the WiFi was sporadic. Still, when we did find an int...